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New Blacksmith transmute in 5.4, old one is now pointless

The new transmute for Blacksmiths in patch 5.4 is the Balanced Trillium Ingot (BTI). This transmute basically renders the older Lightning Steel Ingot (LSI) introduced to craft the new weapons from ilevel 489 to 503 defunct. So thanks. BS was handed a transmute for vanity and downgrades on the patch content, and then given another.

Screw off developers, this seems like a very short and shitty merry-go-round of mindless transmutes with no forward planning. What ever happened to giving progression through a profession, where materials and patterns progress? A leads to B, then C, etc. In essence the Blacksmiths will drop any interest in LSI now and just wait for BTI. Silly.

Balanced Trillium Ingot is used for at the very least new Pants and Belt patterns for Blacksmiths and hopefully more items. If it is just for these two slots then I’ll probably pass on this new “feature”.

Given I launch snark at the devs, here is what I would have done in its place.

Firstly…

Keep the Lightning Steel Ingot as a major component of the 5.4 new crafted items. Adding the BTI is fine as a rare special element in the materials cost to crafters, and having both material needed in a proportion of their rarity retains the value of the transmutes. Given the bloody thing costs a boatload of Trillium it will be brutally expensive. That said, these items become vendor trash as soon as a new item Tier is released.

e.g. Crackling Belt of Pure Destruction, requires 3x BTI, 7x LSI, x3 Harmony, and some Pyrite and Living Steel. There is no need for Trillium or regular Ghost Iron as that material is part of these new transmute ingots.

Change the number of each material to suit the rarity desires, and the proportional false value to be applied to the economy. Meaning if 30 BTIs are needed then these items will be priced dramatically high. And don’t think that won’t happen as the current 503 crafted weapons require 30x days of transmutes to craft. 30 bloody days for an item which si no better than LFR drops!

Secondly…

The creation of these new ingots will give the new season’s PvP patterns. Which is just as bloody useless as a legless greyhound. The LSIs offered auto-learning patterns too, but somehow the older patterns for Blacksmithing added in the 5.0 drop are still not included. In other words a PvE player who is mid level in gearing has no benefit at all from this, as even the “free” patterns are not an enticement.

The solution is to include all the v5 Blacksmith patterns which are not known to the list of patterns which might be learnt as a benefit. That way the Blacksmiths have something to get as a side bonus.

Thirdly…

I’m considering dropping Blacksmith as a profession now in favour of something like Enchanting. Enchanting offers similar buffs and the opportunity to gather mats on the fly instead of just selling all the useless gear drops from raids and dungeons. It might have a similar merry-go-round of malarky in mats and rep gates, but heck it cannot be worse.

3 thoughts on “New Blacksmith transmute in 5.4, old one is now pointless”

Blacksmithing is actually better than Enchanting in terms of player power – since you can put in gems of secondary stats. If Haste is worth 0.75 Intellect, for example, I can get the equivalent of 480 Intellect from Blacksmithing using 320 Haste gems instead of the 320 total Intellect I’d get from Intellect gems.

Mats (blood spirit, haunting spirit) are generally more valuable before they’re crafted. So even if you could disenchant, you’d make more money just selling the mats. You can probably get someone to craft you any gear you want for next to nothing if you provide living steel and spirits.